It was always a sure bet and, finally, PM took the plunge

Julia Gillard. At long bloody last. She knows what punters want. Sort of.

For 12 months now, we've been pleading for the government to get off their backside and do something, to stop the wretched proliferation of gambling ads on television and radio every time we tune into a sports broadcast.

We want our kids to associate gambling with what actually happens, inevitably losing your hard-earned dollars, not what the bookies would have us believe, that it is a brilliant short-cut to fabulous riches and you just about can't miss.

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And the move on Sunday by the government to fire a shot across the bows of the bookies and television networks, warning that they must collectively stop broadcasting live betting odds during games, or face a torpedo amidships in the form of legislation that will force them to do the same, is a good one.

It was also wonderful to see, as the ALP Member for Throsby, Stephen Jones, put it, that ''the TV spruikers of betting odds have been kicked out of the stadium''.

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Gentlemen, don't let the door hit you on the backside on the way out.

The mystery remains, however, why the government didn't go further and do what the vast majority of voters want the nation's leadership to do - place a total ban on gambling ads which, just as tobacco ads used to do, seek to make glamorous for all that which is actually dangerous for many.

"The mystery remains, however, why the government didn't go further and do what the vast majority of voters want the nation's leadership to do". Photo: Getty Images

The philosophy behind such a ban is straightforward, and exactly the same as the philosophy that underpinned the ban on cigarette advertising. No one seeks to place a ban on smoking or gambling itself, just the promotion of them whereby young Australians, ill-equipped to understand the massive con job they're being hit with, get sucked into the gaping maw of a parasitic industry - the chief product of which is impoverished Australians.

At Kirribilli House on Sunday, Gillard particularly focused on the negative impact on the young: ''Families have become increasingly frustrated about the penetration of live odds into sporting coverage, and worried that their son or daughter is now talking about the game, not through the prism of what's happening on the field but through the prism of the associated betting.''

Exactly. But it is not just the live betting that families are worried about, or maddened by.

It is the whole endless exposure to gambling advertising overall, and it is this which remains unaddressed.

The mystery remains, however, why the government didn't go further and do what the vast majority of voters want . . . a total ban on gambling ads . . .

For, as Senator Nick Xenophon noted on Sunday, ''There's still the gaping anomaly that kids will still be exposed to problem gambling. They will still be inundated with gambling ads before the game, after the game and at three-quarter-time.''

Why? Why instead of the Gillard government going the whole hog and getting rid of the whole damn thing, did they just do what was effectively the minimum to try to take the sting out of the issue?

I am mystified, and I hope that banning the lot will be the next obvious step that a Gillard government, or an incoming Coalition government, will take.

But in the meantime, at the very least - at the bare hungry sniffin' minimum - getting rid of both the live odds and the spruikers from the stadium is a very good start.